Pros

Make mobile payments at any location with a credit card reader.
Payments go through faster than with NFC.
Monitors suspicious card activity.

Cons

Only available on a handful of phones.
Lacks gift card or loyalty-program management.

Bottom Line

If your phone supports the clever magnetic technology required, Samsung Pay is by far the most convenient mobile-payment option.

March 27, 2018Michael Muchmore

Samsung Pay holds a place of distinction among mobile payment apps and services: It's the only one that lets you pay at conventional points of sale intended for cards that use magnetic stripes, which are still common in the US. Other countries have moved on to the more secure EMV chip card system, and the US is moving to it as well. You'll still find many retail outlets that only accept the old card system, however, including the many small shops that use Square terminals. Additionally, Samsung Pay offers support for NFC, loyalty plans, Visa Checkout online, and its own reward points. All this adds up to a clear Editors' Choice for payment services.

Setting Up Samsung Pay

The app and service work on most recent Samsung phone models, dating back to the Galaxy S6. In fact, it's preinstalled on any current Samsung phone you buy. I set it up on a Galaxy Note 8, which involved creating a Samsung account and PIN. Adding a credit or debit card starts with simply framing the card in the camera rectangle that appears when you choose to add a card and then entering the expiration date, CVV number, and ZIP code. Next, you agree to the usual verbose terms of service. I also had to call my bank to authorize the setup, but that varies depending on how your bank's security is set up; some simply require a text message or email verification.

The first payment card you add automatically becomes a Favorite Card, but if you have multiple cards entered, you need to choose a Favorite Card. One other thing to note is that after setting up Samsung Pay, you can't use Google Pay (up until recently called Android Pay) without changing phone settings to switch the default tap-to-pay app.

Samsung Pay's design is a bit more cluttered than that of most payment apps I've tested, with lots of tabs and sections for deals and buttons across the bottom, but that's not much of an issue when you go to pay at a store or restaurant.

Paying with Samsung Pay

To test Samsung Pay, I headed over to my favorite local premium coffee shop, which uses a Square point of sale device attached to an iPad for payments. The device only accepts magnetic stripe credit cards and cash, so no other mobile payment option works there. After holding my phone up to the card reader for 15 seconds, nothing happened, until I tapped the Pay with Samsung Pay PIN button at the bottom of the screen. I had previously set up the app to use my irises for payments, but that didn't kick in. A second try, after setting up Pay to use my fingerprint, also didn't take effect until I entered my PIN. Once I had entered my PIN, the payments went through flawlessly.

I also set up Samsung Pay on a Samsung Gear S3 watch, which offers a potentially more convenient way to pay. The watch has its own LTE connectivity, so you don't need to have your phone nearby and paired. And in fact, you don't need any connectivity at all to use Samsung pay—just as you don't need connectivity on a magnetic stripe credit card, though Samsung limits you to five transactions, the count being reset each time you make a wireless connection. You do need to set up a PIN on the Gear, and for some reason, I had to enter my credit card info again, even though I'd already done so on my Galaxy test phone.

Using my watch to pay was, in fact, a much more frictionless experience than using the phone. You simply long-press the top button, your card image appears, and you accept the payment. My cashier at the local Chinese restaurant was impressed, this being her first time seeing someone pay with a smartwatch (her register didn't support NFC).

One inconvenience with Samsung Pay on the Gear is that if you take the watch off, you have to enter your PIN to start using it again. This makes sense, however, as you wouldn't want someone to be able to take the watch off your wrist and start paying without that protection. Another security measure (also used by Apple Pay and others) is the use of tokenized codes rather than your actual credit card number. The service is also protected by Samsung Knox, which monitors the devices for suspicious behavior.

Extras, Shopping, Loyalty Programs, and Rewards

Whenever you use Samsung Pay, you get 5 Samsung Points. For 2,000 points, you can get a $5 reward card, so it's an understatement to say that you need to use the service a lot to get anything worthwhile from it. Still, I haven't seen this perk in other payment apps, and if your linked card earns you points, you're pretty much double-dipping with Samsung Pay. I still think it would make more sense to award points as a percentage of the transaction's dollar amount rather than a flat five points per transaction.

The app includes a Store section where you can buy gift cards for shops and restaurants, and a Deals section offering coupons you can print out. You can also add gift cards and membership cards in the app's Wallet section. Memberships you can add include things like airline frequent flier programs, store loyalty cards, and even regular gym memberships. Finally, for payments on websites and in apps, Samsung Pay can be used with Visa Checkout for over 350,000 merchants.

Samsung Pay works not only in the US, but also in 17 other countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

What You Don't Get

Unlike most of the other payment services I've tested (aside from Google Pay), Samsung Pay doesn't let you sent money to friends and contacts. If you're looking to do that, check out our Editors' Choice, Venmo, the also-very-good Circle Pay, or the recently renamed Google Pay Send (formerly Google Wallet).

Samsung Pay is only about purchases made with mobile devices. The service doesn't have any presence on the web at all. By comparison, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, Square Cash, and Circle Pay all let you pay from a web browser. With Samsung Pay, you can't even see your account online, let alone make any payments to people or other websites.

The Best Way to Pay?

Apple Pay and Google Pay only work with points of sales equipped with NFC technology, but Samsung Pay works at any card reader at all. That said, actually paying with a phone isn't as smooth as with Apple Pay, but paying with a Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch is a dream. You can't pay friends with Samsung Pay as you can with Venmo, Circle, and Square Cash, but you can enroll in lots of merchant loyalty programs, add gift cards, and earn Samsung reward points. Samsung Pay is our Editors' Choice for in-store payment apps.

About the Author

Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for software and Web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine’s coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of Web Services (pretty much the progenitor of Web 2.0) for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine’s Solutions section, which in those days covered programming techniques as well as tips on using popular office software. Most recently he covered Web 2.0 and other software for ExtremeTech.com.

Michael got his start in computing as a lad, when he wrote a BASIC program for a Radio Shack ... See Full Bio